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Monday, February 1, 2010

Company fined $10k for impacting weather radar near San Juan airport

Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) serving San Juan International Airport received interference adjacent to 5.61GHz, source tracked by FCC and FAA agents to radio transmitters providing wireless internet atop a nearby building.
The company responsible for the interference was issued a forfeiture order by the FCC enforcement bureau in the amount of $10,000. While the company used equipment that had been previously certified under the FCC rules for UNII operation, the equipment causing interference was operating on frequencies that it had not been approved for. Moreover, if the transmitters would be considered non-UNII devices and subject to section 15.407(2) of the FCC rules, then the power allowed would have been limited to ¼ Watt in that particular frequency band, however, the devices in question were designed to operating in excess of three times that level.
The full FCC forfeiture order can be found at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-10-138A1.pdf.